itseybitseyspidey
by no white horse for me
Summary: after all, maybe it's not that bad to lose your mind, or, at least, natasha thinks so / a series of Black Widow centric one-shots from the 2012 movie, will be multi-chaptered, can be connected, maybe romance, depending? Finite
1. A Spider's Fears

The Black Widow did not scare very easily – she is an Avenger, she has to be tough. The click of a weapon didn't faze her, dying heartbeats only made her stronger, the cry of someone injured strove her to what was normally a hard won victory. Needless to say, she was strong.

But lying on this boat, an engine blown to pieces, Captain America, Iron Man and Thor battling to keep it in the air, with a villain close to escape, and a man next to her who could lose control and turn into a hulking green thing?

Yeah, that scares her.

Her foot is trapped under something heavy, and Bruce (the brains and also strength of the Avengers Initiation) is slowly losing control. His fists are clenching, his back's arching, and Natasha knows he was almost over the edge. "Bruce, I need you to listen to me." She says in the calmest voice she can muster.

"It's going to be alright. We're going to make it out of here okay. Stay with me, Bruce, I'm begging you. Keep control." Footsteps alert her to someone drawing closer – _two, two people_ – and she looks up to see workmen running toward her. She makes a desperate hand gesture, and without waiting, they bolt.

"Bruce, I swear on my life, I will get you out of this alive…" he cuts across her with a loud an angry shout of pain and fury. Nat's eyes widen, and she watches, horror-struck, as the transformation takes place.

It's an awful thing to witness, and an awful thing to listen to. Bruce, normally calm and collected, is screaming in an animalist way, the thin fabric of his shirt ripping away from him as heavy green skin pushed forward. He grows almost three times his normal height, muscles rippling, still making those horrible noises.

Natasha's finally managed to pull her foot free, and she silently leaps to her feet – as is her trait – and stares at the man she knew.

_Thought_ she knew, because this…well, this was a side of him she was unknown to.

He's leaning against the pipe, his body heaving as he adjusts to _the other guy_. But then, suddenly realizing someone was watching, he turns around, locks eyes with her, and his lip curls back, revealing yellow teeth. Natasha's breath catches, and she runs for it.

Nimbly and silently, she leaps up a set of ladders, glances over her shoulder at the Hulk, and then leaps onto the platform, just as the ladder's ripped away. She skids along hallways and passages, listening to the heavy form crashing its way behind her. But she's fast and small, whereas he is heavy and large, and she outruns him.

She finds a small passage way and crawls into it, shaking from head to toe. As she settles into the corner, her hand slowly lifts to her mouth, and she bites down hard. Her teeth sink into her flesh, and it hurts, but it also makes it harder to cry.

Now, the Black Widow is not scared easily, and she never, ever cried. But right now, sitting in that corner, thinking things over, she wants to burst into tears. She wants to shut herself away, shrivel up and cry, never be seen again. And she knows why.

Because just as the transformation was taking place on Bruce, his eyes connected with hers, and she could almost see the real him, the one she knew, shining through, begging for forgiveness for whatever hell he was about to wreak on the ship. And it tears her heart to bits.

He looked at her – he _stared_ at her, practically begging her to understand that it wasn't his choice, that he didn't have any control over what he was doing.

It takes a moment for Natasha to realize just how badly she was shaking, and just how hard she's bit down on her hand. Her teeth leave marks that penetrate her flesh, and she can't keep her hand steady at all. Her walkie-talkie crackles and snaps in her ear, and blood from a cut above her eye drips down her cheek.

He almost killed me, she thinks to herself, thinking about the way the Hulk's eyes shone with the thirst for blood – _her blood_. Her stomach flip-flops, there's a pounding behind her eyes, and her throat feels as though it's been closed off. She's having trouble breathing, having trouble drawing in a breath, and even when she manages it, it hurts and scratches like someone's pouring gasoline down her throat and lighting it on fire.

And, before she can stop it, she throws up.

She heaves and coughs until she feels there is nothing left to pass, so instead she leans back against the pipe, wipes at her mouth and looks down at her grimy fingernails. The ship is in complete and utter chaos, and she's sitting down here next to her own vomit, saving her own ass.

He almost killed me, she thinks again, running a hand through her short, fiery red hair. She bites down on her hand again so hard she tastes metallic blood, and as she pulls it away and blinks down at the bright bits of maroon that had swelled up, she bursts into silent tears.

They swarm down her face and leave glistening tracks of filth. Her whole body shakes and she hates herself for it. You repulsive little beast, a voice whispers in her ear as more tears pour down her face, sitting here thinking about yourself while others are out there, risking their necks to keep you alive, how vile.

Don't listen to it, another meek, gentler voice whispers. You were almost killed by someone you thought to be your friend. You have every right to have a moment on your own.

Natasha still trembles violently, her hands shaking so much she could hardly see them, or maybe that's because of the tears. She feels sick, sitting down here, because she can hear the fight going on around her. And then, almost out of nowhere, she reaches into the holster at her side, pulls out her gun and fires it. A pipe bursts and let out some kind of gas, but she's past caring.

She knew this was coming, so she can't understand why she was so shocked when it happened. She knew Loki was using Bruce for his own twisted games, to destroy the ship, kill everyone on board, shit like that. She just didn't think it would happen so fast. The realization had only hit her a few hours before the engine blew up, less than, even.

The first person she thought to notify was Fury, but that had done shit to help her. The engine still blew to pieces while everyone was bickering and snapping at each other, and someone ripped out the grate from underneath her, Tony, Steve and Bruce, and she had been left to deal with the angry dude.

That's why she's sitting here, huddled in a corner, trying to piece things together. All she can figure out is that an engine is blown, Loki's probably about to escape, and their position is compromised. Oh, and that Clint's on the ship.

But she doesn't want to worry about that right now.

Voices ring through her ear – something about an engine, a power fan, a red lever, and then finally a word slips through her haze. _Clint_.

Fury's asking for someone to find him, someone to copy, to know that somebody, _somewhere_, was out there breathing, willing to kick his ass. Very slowly, she lifts her trembling hand to her ear, presses and says in a loud clear voice, "I copy."

She leaps to her feet instantly and takes off. Feet make no sound, breath is silent to her. She is the Black Widow – she is silent and deadly and one bite from her can kill you in seconds.

_Or so she's heard._

A deafening roar rings in her ears, and she picks up her pace. Still, silent, quiet. Never making a noise on the metal of the ship, though she swings up and down through ladders and holes and most others would have made the loudest noise possible. But she's silent. Always silent.

And then, she catches sight of him. Walking with a purpose in his step, his famous bow held out in front of him. But this is not the Hawkeye she once knew – he's been manipulated and twisted into someone's minion. She turns down the aisle, moving lightly across the ground.

But of course, he hears her. He always hears her. He whips around – crystalline blue is what cold grey meets – and the bow is aiming at her, but Natasha's fast. Her foot strikes out before he even has time to blink.

Neck. Lock. Punch. Release. Swing. Duck. Swing. Duck. Swing. Duck. It's a well-rehearsed game – she's done it countless times.

She manages to knock the bow from his hands – _maybe he's just taking pity on her_ – and he falls to his knees. Natasha locks her fingers in his hair, pulls back and slams his head into the metal railing. He falls backwards, she leaps out of the way, and she watches as the blood pours from his wound and he makes moans of pain before her.

Finally, he manages to pull himself from the floor, and as his eyes lock onto hers – they're normal, a voice whispers – she feels her heartstrings play a musical note of joy. "Nat?" He asks, rubbing at the blood. That's all he got out before her foot hits his face and he crumbles again.

"Why is he strapped up?" Natasha demands the first time she's allowed to see him. "He's not a fucking animal. Release the restraints. Release the fucking restraints!" Tony has to drag her out of there kicking and screaming, back to her compartment, where he dumps her on the bed.

Just before the door clicks shut, she mumbles into her pillow, "Fuck you, Stark. Fuck you." There's a moment of silence, and then Tony says drily, "Believe me, love, lots of people are trying." He slips out of the room and shuts the door a millisecond before the lamp hits it.

Two days later, she's sitting with Steve in front of a large window at midnight, a bottle of vodka balanced between them, each of them taking shots and telling each other secrets. She takes a swig, hands it to Steve and says with a hiccup, "I'm gonna kick Loki's ass."

Steve snorts and sprays vodka all over the window, which sends her into hysterics, and it takes almost 10 minutes before she finally wipes her eyes, still smiling, and pushes herself back into her seat. Steve takes another shot, turns to her, says, "Get in line, princess." And then he collapses.

The vodka bottle shatters all over the floor and she's screaming in laughter again.

Natasha's pretty sure she's losing her mind.

By the time Clint wakes up, she's sitting next to his bed (cage) and he tells her that he has a massive headache, and all she says is, "Drink this." And she hands him a cup of water with a powder in it. He skulls it in one go and lets out a sigh of relief. "Told me that it would curb the pain." She says crisply, snatching the cup back.

She's not entirely sure why she's so pissed off at him – she really has no right to – but for some odd reason, she wants to make him suffer, make him hurt. "You're pissed at me, aren't you, spidey?" He says, using the nickname he created for her years ago. The cup slips from her hand and bounces on the floor, leaving a trail, and she keeps her cool as best she can.

A single forbidden tear slips from her eye as she remembers, recalls her past, when Clint and her would aim shots and arrows and she'd always be silently amazed with his boy and how accurate it was. He only let her take a shot with it once, but she almost shot Fury in the good eye, so she never picked it up again.

After a moment of silence, Natasha spun around, looked once at Clint, and walked out, the door slamming loudly shut behind her.

Maybe it's not that bad to lose your mind, she thought to herself as she stood in the destructive mess that used to be her bedroom, her hands bleeding from cuts of glass. Because at least if people think you're insane, they'll steer clear.

Natasha and Clint didn't talk about that day, and while Natasha was glad, she also felt a bit annoyed, because, well, she did want him to suffer, just a bit.

_Just a bit, though. Not much_.

**Vas Happening? So, this is going to be kind of a Black Widow multi chapter because I saw the Avengers a few days ago, and she was my favourite character because she kicked ass! I will make it Widow-centric, because she seems very destroyable, so I hope you enjoy this, and keep checking back for more!  
HPloveofmylife**


	2. Waiting For Tomorrow

**Part two! Now, i'm not really sure how many chapters there will be - as many as necessary, so i hope you enjoy them! This might seem a bit OOC for Nat, but i think that it's nice for her to have a bubbly side. Maybe that's just my sick personality. You tell me! Oh, and i will be changing my name from HPloveofmylife to no white horse for me so just remember! Thanks again, and remember to review!  
HPloveofmylife (for the last time)**

The realization hits her slowly, almost like someone has to explain it to her. As they're standing in the rubble of Manhattan and Natasha looks around at the damage that is irreparable, all the lives lost underneath the rubble, it begins to dawn on her.

"We won." She whispers to herself – Thor, Clint and Steve turn to her with their eyebrows raised, as if questioning her sanity. "We won." She says again, louder, and both Tony and Bruce (now back to normal size) swivel around to look at her. Natasha can see the realization dawning over them, but Clint's the first one to crack a smile.

"You're right, Nat." He says, flicking his hand to shut the bow down. "We won."

And suddenly she's leaping into Clint's arms and hugging him and squealing like an idiot. Everybody else is staring at them like they've lost their minds, but Natasha's too happy to care. Clint begins to spin, just as happy as her, and she screams with glee.

"That's enough!" Steve shouts, bringing his hand up, and Clint stops so fast Natasha tumbles from his arms. But, quick as ever, she flips around and lands standing upright, hands on her hips.

"We might have won, but there's still Loki to deal with." Stark says, brushing dried blood off his suit. They all turn to Thor, tossing his hammer from hand to hand.

He notices them looking, and his eyebrow raises. "What?" He asks.

"You're bringing Loki back to Asgard, idiot." Tony says, motioning to the crumpled form next to them. Natasha managed to knock him out after the portal shut, and brought him down to decide his fate.

"I am bringing Loki home?" Thor repeats, and then ducks when Natasha pitches a rock at his head.

"Yes, you idiot!" The girl screams, still very excited. "You're bringing that lunatic back to your home! He's not staying here!" She begins to dance around, happier than anyone has ever seen her. And then, almost out of nowhere, she stops, looks up at the sky, and shouts, "WE WON!"

Thor bursts out laughing, Steve and Bruce roll their eyes, Tony smirks, and Clint just grins, runs up behind her, wraps his arms around her waist and lifts her in the air. They're dancing around shouting at the top of their lungs, "WE WON, WE WON, WE WON!" with huge smiles plastered across their faces.

"SHUT THE HELL UP!" Steve shouts, marches up to them, pulls Natasha away and dumps her unceremoniously into Thor's arms. "Clint, here. Now." Steve snarls, and then flinches when a rock hits his head.

"Aren't you happy, patriot boy?" Natasha taunts, waving a small pebble at him.

"Nat, stop throwing those thi…" He cuts off as one hits his cheek, rolls down and slips into his shirt. Natasha screams with laughter, clapping her hands and throwing her legs up like an eight year old. Steve looks at his teammates in desperation, and finally Thor says, in his deep rumbling voice,

"Shall I take her for a ride?"

This shuts Natasha up instantly.

"I swear, if you lift me up off the ground, I will kick your – AAGH!" and they all watch as Thor takes off, carrying a squirming and squealing Natasha in his strong arms. Even from on the ground, the rest of the Avengers can hear Natasha's carrying screams, and whatever types of colourful profanity she hurls at the demi-god.

"I've never seen her this happy." Tony says, watching them with a hand covering his eyes.

"Neither. Normally Nat's about as emotionless as a rock." Bruce replies, obviously trying to hold in laughter. And then he lets out a harsh swear as something hard hits him in the forehead. He turns to Steve, rubbing the spot. "What the hell was that about?" He demands.

Steve's throwing a small pebble in the air with an amazed smile on his face. "Now I know why Nat does this. It's fun." He grins, and then flicks the small thing at Tony, hitting him squarely in the eye.

"I think you can take me down now!" Natasha shouts over the rush of wind through her hair as she clings desperately to Thor's neck.

"What, does the Black Widow not like heights?" Thor teases, and Natasha growls at him.

"No, you fool, most spiders don't!"

"Alright, then, you're the boss!"

Natasha's screams can be heard from miles around as Thor plummets head first to the ground.

"We're gonna crash, we're gonna crash, we're gonna CRASH!" She shrieks, shutting her eyes as the ground draws nearer, but all of a sudden it stops, she stops, and her feet find solid ground. She pulls away from Thor and stumbles forward. Someone's arms close around her, and she opens her grey eyes to meet Clint's, who's smirking at her.

"That was the worst experience of my life." She tells him, wrapping her arms around his middle. She can feel him lock up for a second, but then he laughs and holds her tight.

"It's okay, Nat. It's all over now." Clint whispers into her short red hair, and Natasha's not really sure if he's talking about flying with Thor or the battle they've just won.


	3. Give Up Forever

The day after the battle on the ship, Natasha sits at the kitchen table, slowly eating her bacon and eggs. Maria, obviously taking pity on her, made it for her and poured her a cup of strong black coffee. But Natasha isn't hungry. She feels sick to her stomach, and the eggs and meat only make it worse, but Maria's watching her like a vulture across the room, and made her promise to eat everything she could.

Finally, Natasha lays her fork and knife on the plate and pushes it away, running her hand through her hair. Maria, who had been watching her while talking to a controller, puts up a hand and weaves her way toward Natasha, who's now sitting with her head in her hands. She sits down and pushes the half-empty plate away.

"You know it's not your fault." Maria says quietly, gently prying Natasha's trembling hands away from her face. Natasha doesn't look up at the young woman, instead finds interest in the grains of wood in the table.

"It might as well be." She replies, her voice thick with tears. "He's my partner. Partners are supposed to look after each other. I didn't look after him!" And she suddenly jumps up, swipes out and overturns the table. Maria hops gracefully to her feet and watches, dumbstruck, as Natasha tears the kitchen to pieces, shouting at no one in particular.

"HE WAS MY PARTNER! I PROMISED TO PROTECT HIM!" the microwave and coffee machine smash on the floor. People run up, but Maria holds out her hand to stop them, quietly pushing them all backwards, and letting Natasha's fury run its course. The Black Widow continues to scream at the top of her lungs, making guttural noises as glasses, pots, pans, bowls, plates, cutlery shatter around her, making musical notes through all the horrible sounds.

Eventually, as Maria knew it would, Natasha's fury dies out and she just stands in the middle of the kitchen, looking around at the mess she made. And then suddenly, she lets out a dry sob and drops to her knees, her elbows resting on her legs, her head in her hands as her body heaves with tears that no one else can hear.

A million thoughts race through her head. She owed Clint a debt, that was true, but not only that. She owed him her life. He had saved her when it seemed that she was lost. So, she owed him more than her life. She owed him _everything_. Everything she owned was his. And the fact that they were partners made it 10 times worse.

"Don't touch her." Maria warns, making a flick with her hand to send them all backwards. They look at her for a moment, but then return to their stations, their eyes flickering over to the kitchen every now and then.

Natasha's rocking back and forth on the ground, glass cutting into her skin, her own blood pooling around her. Glassy tears slide down her cheeks and into her mouth, and she tries to remember the last time she felt so weak, so broken down.

So _shattered._

Hands brush against her back, slide down to her hand to help her up, but she pushes them away with a snap, a snarl, a growl. "Leave me alone!" She finally shouts, throwing her hands in the air, but her voice cracks and she knows she's not as scary as she'd like to think.

After a while, Maria slowly walks toward her and kneels next to the shaking girl, gently prying her hands away from her face. "There was nothing you could have done." Maria tells her calmly, forcing Natasha's cold grey eyes to meet hers. "I want you to get yourself patched up. We'll clear this up. Stop beating yourself up over something you had no control over." There's an air of 'that's it' to Maria's tone as she drags Natasha to her feet, wipes off the glass from her back, and pushes her away.

Natasha doesn't dare contradict Maria. And besides, the cuts on her legs are already stinging.

Later that night, Natasha sits on her bed, her knees drawn to her chest as she tries to figure out what happened today. Her hands twitch toward her stitches, but she forces them to her side. Her eyes are red and her face is puffy from all the tears that have been shed, but she doesn't care.

Her sparkling eyes lift toward the ceiling; she breathes in deeply and says, "I just want to tell him I'm sorry." She waits for a minute, as if waiting for a reply.

What a stupid thing to do. No one ever listens to her.

Eventually, driven mad by her own thoughts and the silence of her room, she jumps to her feet, slips on a pair of thongs, unlocks the door to her bedroom and steps out into the silent hall.

As she wanders along aimlessly, glass crackles under her thongs, and the light reflects off the shattering pieces of destruction. Very slowly, she bends down and picks one up, inspecting it. She holds it up to the window – she's not really sure where it's from – and then she pockets it and continues down to the kitchen.

When she reaches the control station, her hand brushes against computer screens and keys, and as her fingertip touches one, a screen pops up. Natasha bends down to look at it and then reels back in horror, her hand flying to her mouth.

It's Clint, strapped to a chair, making horrible silent animal noises as doctors' fingers poke and prod him, jab him with needles, stuff him to the brim with medication. Someone must have muted the sound, and she's glad, because just looking at the way his face contorts in pain from whatever they're doing, hearing the noise would kill her inside.

Her hand inches toward the close button, but then a voice speaks from the shadows.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

She jumps about a foot in the air, loses her grip on the floor, slips, hits the ground and brings the chair on top of her. "Fuck!" She hisses, pushing her red hair from her eyes. She pushes the chair off of her and looks up at Steve with fire in her eyes.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" She demands nastily, pushing off his attempts to help her to her feet. She's been surviving the past 20 or so years on her own, and she doesn't plan to start living off a guy now.

"Just telling you." He says, turning crisply on his heel and marching back to the kitchen. She watches him pick his way back through the mess she created that day, and she can't help but crack a grin. "Nice handiwork, by the way, with this." He says, gesturing around. Broken plates and cups litter the ground, there's a burst packet of salt, a shattered pitcher of milk, and she's pretty sure that the black and white remnants of something near her was once Oreos.

"You know how it goes." She says with a shrug as she brushes off some sugar from a seat and sits down.

He looks at her with wide eyes. "No I don't, actually. I was trapped in ice for 70 years; I haven't got the slightest fucking clue how it goes." Natasha raises her eyebrows at his swear but doesn't say anything for a few moments as she surveys the kitchen.

"Did you love her?" She asks suddenly, and Steve flinches slightly, turning to look at her slowly. His dark green eyes meet hers and she refuses to look away.

"Yeah." He says after a minute. "Yeah, I did." And they sit in silence for a few minutes longer.

"How do you know if you love someone, Rogers?" The words slip out before she can stop them, but she knows she's curious.

There's another few seconds of silence and then Steve sighs heavily and says, still watching the dark window, rain hitting the glass like bullets, "You never really know fully. You can kind of feel it, like this wave, taking control, but you can never really be sure. Well, at least until you know you'll never see them again." His voice sounds far off, reminiscent of a time that Natasha never knew.

"What was her name?"

"Peggy." He replies with a soft smile. "The most beautiful girl you've ever laid eyes on. And she always will be."

Natasha waits for a minute, and then she wonders quietly, "How did it feel? To know that you had been inside ice for 70 years while she died"- here he flinches –"or took her final breath? Don't you ever wonder if she knew where you were?"

She can tell by the look of surprise evident on his face that he had never thought of this. He had never wondered if she knew where he lay, waiting for time to tick past. "It felt horrible." Steve says brutally. "Like my heart had been ripped from my chest. Like I'd never be whole again." There's finality to his tone that tells Natasha to end the conversation there.

"You ever been in love, Romanoff?" Steve asks, snapping his eyes onto her.

She wants to laugh, to tell him no, to push the idea aside, but that would be lying. So instead she flips the chair around to face him, crosses her arms over her chest and inclines her head. Steve's eyebrows shoot up into his hairline.

"Really?"

Her lip curls back into a snarl. "Just because I work for S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't mean I'm a heartless bitch." She tells him. Steve makes a dramatic hand gesture and she flips him off. "He was a boy, and I was a girl. We fell in love, he cheated on me, I kicked his ass, end of story." She doesn't say his name because that would break the rules of the game that she's been playing for so long, and Steve doesn't ask for his name.

"You just dumped him?" Steve says incredulously. Not that he really expected anything different.

"Well, no." Natasha smirks, flipping her hair over her shoulder. "I kicked his ass _then_ dumped him." Steve laughs and Natasha cracks a small smile.

"You feel guilty about what happened to Clint, don't you?" Steve suddenly blurts – Natasha flinches slightly but doesn't say anything or do anything. "Nat?" he repeats, leaning around the table to look at her face, and it takes him a moment to realize that she's crying.

He's on his feet instantly, darting around the table to kneel next to her, his strong arms folding around her slim frame. She leans into his neck and cries quietly, letting all her pain and anguish flood out for a few moments. "Yeah I do." She sniffles eventually, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand.

"Well, it wasn't your fault." Steve tells her strongly, and all Natasha does is rolls her eyes.

"But he was my partner. And partners are supposed to protect each other, right?" She looked to him for confirmation, and all Steve did was nod, thinking back to Bucky all those years ago, his best friend and partner-in-crime who had put his life on the line for Steve.

"But Loki's a demi-god. What he controls, what he has – it's nothing we've ever been trained for. _Nothing._" He puts heavy emphasis on the last word, gripping her hands tightly. She can't help but think he's kind of right, but kind of wrong. "You really should look after yourself better." Steve says with a gentle smile, pointing to the cuts and abrasions that mar her pearly white legs.

His fingertip brushes against one, and Natasha lets out a small gasp of pain. Steve retracts his hand instantly, but Natasha catches it and locks her fingers before she's even sure what she's doing. Steve looks to her with dark green eyes, and she blinks back, and before either of them have thought it through, Natasha's pressing her lips to his and his arms are winding around her waist and she's leaning into him and she can only think one word:

_Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Fucking wrong._

But for some stupid reason, she doesn't stop it. Her trembling fingers wrap around the cotton of his collared shirt, his tongue slips into her mouth and locks over hers, and she's sliding onto the floor on her knees without breaking contact.

Their torsos press against each other, Steve's fingers slide up her shirt, leaving hot trails against her stomach. And then suddenly he shoves her away and scrambles to his feet. "We can't do this." He says stiffly, and she just stares at the floor and says nothing. "I just spent the last 70 years as a…'capsicle' as Stark would call it." Natasha looks away and bites her lip to refrain from laughing.

"And you're Natasha Romanoff, a Russian SHIELD agent. Why the hell would you want a 95 year old virgin?" Steve laughs bitterly and collapses next to her. It's kind of pissing him off how she won't meet his eyes. "I cannot believe I just kissed you." He says suddenly, hoping this will get a reaction from her. It does, but a bad one. A _terrible_ one, actually.

She spins so fast he can hardly blink, reaches out a pale hand and slaps him hard. And then Natasha jumps to her feet and turns to walk away, pushing back tears and swallowing the lump in her throat. Steve regrets his words instantly, hopping to his feet and following her.

"Nat, come back! Come on, Nat, it was just a joke!" He calls to her, practically jogging to keep up with her long strides even though she's 2 times shorter than him. "For god's sake, Natasha, don't be a child!" He finally manages to catch her hand but it's knocked from his grip, his feet are swiped underneath him, and his head hits the concrete – hard.

"Don't EVER call me a child again, Rogers!" She shrieks over him, her blood red curls mussed, her eyes bloodshot, her whole body trembling violently. Considering the moment, Steve's actually petrified. "Okay, so maybe kissing you was a terrible, _terrible_ mistake, but it doesn't mean that you say it!" He leans back as she leans forward, her knees giving way underneath her, and she's now so close to him their noses are touching.

"And what's it to you if I feel guilty for what happened to Clint? I fucking should! He's my fucking partner! We promised each other that we'd always be there to protect each other's backs. I – wasn't." she spits out the last two words venomously.

And then her voice drops suddenly and her eyes go back to normal but she's still shaking violently, and Steve's pretty sure that this is the side Stark warned him not to get on. "Yeah, I may love Clint, but we work in a dangerous line of business and to him it will always be work _then _me." Steve doesn't know Clint, so he can't exactly tell her she's wrong like she so desperately wants him to.

But as she climbs to her feet after a moment, her cold grey eyes stare down at him, and all she says is, "Get some sleep, Captain. We have training tomorrow, and we don't want you falling asleep on the job." She sneers at him – he gets the hidden meaning, don't worry – and then spins around and walks away, leaving him alone on the floor.

But when she's sure she's out of eye-shot, she presses against the wall, slides down to the floor and rests her head in her hands as she sobs.

**Now, as you may know, I am a Clint/Natasha shipper (for those of you who checked out my profile, I applaud you) and there have been not-so-subtle hints placed throughout this whole chapter, and throughout the whole story, that lean toward Clintasha (pretty sure that's NOT a word) but putting in a bit of Cap/Tasha was quite fun. I rewatched Avengers the other day, and I realize that the facts in both the first chapters are MAJORLY incorrect - mainly the first chapter, the second was only wrong in one place. So please review? Oh, and can anyone guess what the hidden meaning in Natasha's line at the end is? If you can, I applaud.  
no white horse for me**


	4. Never Felt So Alone

Natasha wakes with tears streaming down her face, her whole body trembling inside the cocoon of white cotton. The black singlet that she wears to bed is riding up to her ribs, leaving her midriff exposed to the freezing air of the open window. As her grey eyes flick around the room as though searching for someone, her red fingernails reach up to hug the pillow to her chest. Once entirely sure she's alone, she flips over onto her back and stares up at the ceiling.

She doesn't like Stark Tower, she decides suddenly. It feels like a glowing beacon, saying 'come and kill us and mock us, why don't you?' and Natasha hates it. And she knows that Clint does as well, but he's spent so long trying to find a place he fits in that living in Stark Tower is a major improvement to living in a warehouse where he sits up on railing and watches people walk past all day and all night, tinkering with the stupid TESSERACT that almost destroyed the whole world.

And even though he won't admit it, he kind of likes having people around who he knows will protect him if he can't manage that.

That's a major contribution to why Natasha doesn't like living there. She's always hated relying on people – in Russia the night Phil called, she was aware she was being tailed – had been for about three blocks – and she knew that the next client she was supposed to see to was probably going to try to kill her. Valeriya would have called her insane, nuts, out of her mind for letting the tail get that far. But she was a mercenary, and if she was to do a job, she was going to do it right.

And Valeriya was dead, so whatever she said didn't really matter that much, now did it?

Eventually, driven mad by the cold breeze drifting lazily through the open window, she pushes the covers all the way back with her feet and struggles into standing, reaching out her hand to shut the damned window, but then she draws to a halt as she sees a shadow on the roof flicker in the moonlight. And then a flame strikes up, the heat of which she can feel down in her room – second floor from the top – and suddenly she's grabbing a blanket, jamming her feet into a pair of thongs, and she's pattering her way up to the roof.

At the entrance to the roof – still bearing the remnants of the destroyed portal opener – Natasha stops dead, staring out onto the snow-laden concrete roof. She can see him clearly against the outline of the sky, hunched over, shoulders shaking slightly with tears she cannot hear. Even with only her legs exposed to the air, the rest of her bundled up in a blanket, her whole body wracks with shivers.

She steps out into the air, pulls the blanket tighter, and walks over to where he has set up the fire, in the middle of the roof with two chairs surrounding it. Almost like he knew she'd be there. He doesn't look up when she lowers herself into the chair or when she leans forward to hold her hands above the open flame. Natasha knows that he can sense her, but he also knows that he's ashamed of the droplets of water that drip down his cheeks.

"He would have wanted you to move on." Tasha says as she leans back into the chair, the blanket wrapped around her skinny shoulders as she tucks her legs into a cross-legged position. Even though he doesn't meet her eyes, he inclines his head ever so slightly, giving her leave to continue. "Phil, whatever he may have been, was no idiot." For the first time that night, Clint looks up and meets her eyes with a look that says 'are you joking?'

Natasha reconsiders her first phrase for a moment. "Okay, so he might have been an idiot, but he didn't die for nothing." This drags a small smile to Clint's lips, but then it's gone and he's staring into the fire, the flames dancing in his eyes and lighting up his face.

"He died believing in magic." Clint says suddenly, and if Natasha hadn't been trained for things like that she would have leapt sky-high. But instead she folds her arms over her chest and cocks her head at him.

"Phil died believing in us." She replies. Clint lets out a dry, harsh bark of a laugh.

"Yeah. _Us._ We're magic, aren't we? Super serum, a hulking green thing, a fancy suit, a demi-god and then you and I, the best train-to-kill assassins out there. _Aren't we magic?" _there's an insane look in his eye that gives her pause, but then her eyes meet his – grey against brown – and she knows that he's wrong.

"No, Clint, we're not magic. None of us are magic. We're not!" She adds loudly when he scoffs. She knows exactly what they are. "We're science." He grows rigid and still, and she can tell that he's never thought of this before. "Steve with his super-serum, and Bruce with the same kind of thing, they're not magic – they're some fool's creation to make a whole 'nother human race. And Stark – much as I think he's a stuck-up bastard – is a genius. Thor is man of legend, but he's not magic. He's simply just a fairy tale brought to life. And you and I… well, you and I have been trained to kill since the day we could walk.

"So, no, Clint, none of us are magic. We're science." She feels quite pleased with her counter-argument because she knows she's right. Clint raises an eyebrow but otherwise keeps his mouth shut. Tasha knows she's won the battle.

They sit in silence for a bit longer – well, Clint in silence while Natasha hums the tune of 'Thinking of You' by Katy Perry. After a while, Clint leans into the seat and turns to Natasha, a question on his lips.

"There's one thing that's been bugging me for a while, Agent Romanoff." He tells her, and she tilts her head to show that she's open for questions. She can sense the hesitation in his voice, and can see it in his eyes, but then he suddenly blurts out in a rush;

"How did your parents die?"

She sits stock-straight swiftly, her irises ablaze, watching him like the spider after which she was named. Clint meets her cold grey eyes and doesn't let go, even though he's secretly scared of what she'll do to him. And then she abruptly folds in the middle and rests her head on her knees. Clint makes a jerk of movement, but she holds up a single finger, and he draws still. He watches her for a few moments, waiting for her to speak, and when she does her voice is scratchy and raw.

"In a fire. A week after my fifth birthday. We were at my house in Stalingrad. It was about midnight, I was asleep in my bed, but I remember my parents talking before I fell asleep."

"_We need to get her out of here, Denis!"_

"_Alexia, how can we do that without looking suspicious?"_

"_So what are we supposed to do? Let out daughter die by a fire?"_

"_I have told you countless times that he will be here! We must have faith, he owes me a debt!"_

Her eyes are taking on a misty, reminiscent look, and it's scaring Clint a little. She inhales a shaky breath, and he can tell that she needs a little push. He gets to his feet, kneels next to her chair and entwines his fingers with hers. "Go on." He says quietly. And so she does.

"I was just a baby. I didn't know what my parents were talking about that night – they always whispered weird things in the middle of the night when they thought I couldn't hear. But I could _always _hear. I remember when the fire broke out, I was asleep, and I remember waking up to the smell of smoke. I thought it was Matushka making breakfast, but when I opened my door, the smell was far too strong to just be eggs and bacon. And I couldn't see past five feet in front of me, maybe even less.

"I called out for my parents, but my voice couldn't have gotten far because of the smoke. I just kept screaming and screaming and screaming, but no one replied at first. And then I could hear a faint voice in my parent's bedroom, calling out for me. It was Batushka – my dad – telling me to run, I know now. But back then I ran to the voice. And I was met with a wall of flame." She feels the fire, licking its way up her arms, scorching her skin to toast, burning everything in its path. She's never spoken of this incident before, but she has a feeling that she probably should have.

"Batushka and Matushka had known about the fire, had planned for someone to come and save me. And someone did – a man named Ivan Drakoff, a good friend of my father's and a man I knew and trusted well. He had been over to my house many times, and I had always liked him. But when the fire started, he wasn't there yet, and I was confused and scared, so I panicked, screamed and ran down the stairs just before the whole top floor collapsed on itself. I just sat and waited for almost half an hour in the flames – I locked myself in the bathroom, thinking that if I'd shut the door, the flames wouldn't be able to hurt me." She laughs at her own stupidity, and Clint squeezes her hand a bit tighter.

"When Ivan turned up, I was about a minute away from the flames choking me. He pulled me from the bathroom and brought me outside. I remember quite well that it was snowing, and all I was wearing was a simple bed slip, but Ivan wrapped me in one of his jackets and carried me home through the snow, back to his huge house. And I spent the next 10 or so years living under his care, being trained as an assassin, and in all those 10 years, I never once thought about my parents – I was too solely focused on training well enough to be able to do what I was sent to do." She sucks in a sharp breath and shuts her eyes, tears spilling from her lashes, and Clint understands that story time is over. And he also knows that this is as much emotion Natasha has shown in a long time.

But as he moves to untangle their fingers and go back to his seat, Tasha's other hand latches onto his arm and she looks him dead in the eye, her cold grey irises almost silver from the tears. "Don't." She begs, her voice meek and small as she clutches his arm tight to her chest. Clint searches her eyes, and then very slowly he stands, lifts her bridal style from her seat, sits down and positions her on his lap like a child. Oddly, she doesn't argue, just curls her slim legs under her and tucks her head into his shoulder, her hot breath sending shivers rolling down his spine.

Silence overcomes them for a while, with just the sound of their breathing and the fire crackling in front of them. Clint can feel her shaking with tears, but he doesn't say anything – her eyes are trained solely on the fire and it doesn't seem like she wants to look away. "Tasha?" He whispers eventually, and she slowly turns to him, her eyes glistening in the fire. They stare at each other for what seems like an eternity, and then, as if drawn by a string, her hand draws up and touches his cheek, her fingertip running along the harsh cut that reaches from his temple to his jaw, and he winces.

"Does it hurt?" She asks quietly, her voice full of a compassion he's never heard in her before.

He gives her a crooked smile. "I've had worse."

It's almost instantaneous, what happens next. Both her hands fly to his cheeks, one of his winds in her hair, the other wraps around her waist and pulls her closer, and then their lips are meeting and their tongues are together and her nails are digging into his face, and it feels so, so, so right to them. She breaks away for less than a second to press her forehead against his so that their eyes are level, and she whispers doggedly, "Promise me this means something to you."

"I promise."

And then they're kissing like there's no tomorrow.

He's the one to pull away, but he does it gently, never once taking his hand away from her hair. As he searches her eyes, tears still clinging to her lashes, he comes to a jolting realization, and before he can even think it through, his mouth is already forming the words, the letters rolling off his tongue.

"I love you."

Natasha could swear that her heart stopped beating. Love, love, love, what did she tell Loki about love? She can almost hear his snide voice in her ear:

"_Why, is this love, Agent Romanoff?"_

"_Love is for children, I owe him a debt." _

Abruptly, she jumps to her feet, her nails making deeper wounds into the scar that already mars his face as she drags her hand upwards. He watches her with cautious eyes, almost like he expected this reaction.

"I do not deal in love. Love is for children." Her Russian accent is thick – it always is if she's mad. "Do not play games with me, Agent Barton; I do not think it will end well for either of us." And then she swivels around on her heel, rips the blanket from underneath him, and marches away, her head bent low against the biting wind, leaving Clint alone and confused.

However, once in the cover of the stairwell, she leans back against the cold concrete wall, tears gushing down her cheeks, her whole body shaking from tip to tail. Natasha leans against the wall for a few seconds to get her balance, and then she begins to make her way back to the 98th floor, leaning against the handrail for support the whole time, in case her legs give out and she falls.

Once in her own bed, she cocoons herself in all the blankets she owns, turns on every heater in the room full blast (Stark has too much money, he won't mind) and shuts all the windows she can, even the ones highest up, and she still can't stop shivering like a wet dog. After too many failed attempts at sleeping, with the flames of the fire still jumping to her window, she flips over onto her stomach and bursts into tears. They run salty into her mouth, and she gulps them down like water. It's a harsh, bitter reminder that all this is true, and that nothing can change that.

_You're a liar, Natasha Romanoff, _a voice whispers in her mind, sounding eerily like Loki's. _A liar and a fraud_. She doesn't really have the heart to disagree with him because he's most likely right. He is, she knows that he is. She's a liar and a cheat and a fraud.

Because when she told Clint that love was for children, the only thing that was running through her mind was 'I love you too.'

The next morning, Natasha drags herself from her bed at Banner's insistence, throws on a pair of jeans, a singlet top and a cardigan, runs a hasty brush through her hair and walks out into the dining hall with a confident swagger in her step. But that confidence almost falls to pieces when she locks eyes with Clint and sees the red rings that surround his eyes. Steve seems to have noticed it too, because as Natasha lowers herself into her designated seat – Ms Potts' orders – he shoots her a pointed look, which she pointedly ignores.

Breakfast is good – Tony and Bruce keep the conversation going, with witty remarks and added biscuits of Bruce's dry humour. Clint and Natasha don't say much, though they never really do during breakfasts, and Steve and Thor add in their own little comments at whatever the two geniuses may say. Natasha picks at her food, ignoring the way Clint's eyes bore into the side of her skull and the way Steve's seem to penetrate her mind.

When the dishes have all been cleared away – well, if you call blowing them to pieces using a booster 'clearing away' then yes – Natasha is the first one to jump to her feet and bolt from the room, down about 10 flights of stairs to the training level, where she grabs the first knife she sees – a long, pointed blade with a swishy handle that could inflict serious harm either way – and throws it at the nearest padded upright block. She puts so much force into the throw that the knife rips through the padding and clatters to the ground.

"STUPID…FUCKING…IDIOT!" She screams as more knives hit the walls, and when she runs out of those, she kicks around everything within a two foot radius: training pads, helmets, shin guards, anything that can be, is kicked.

"Do you want to tell me what's going on?" A low voice asks at the door, and Natasha whirls around, red hair flying, eyes manic, to see Steve leaning against a wall, his arms over his chest, and the muscles on his arms pushing through his shirt, trying to rip apart the thin fabric.

"No, I don't." She snarls, standing up straight with her arms on her hips. Steve shrugs and steps into the training room.

"Well, it looks like you might need to." He says flippantly, pointing around the messed up room. Her lip curls back and her eyes go to slits, but he doesn't back down.

"It's something between Barton and I. Nothing that concerns anyone else in the team." She tells him, her voice catching slightly. Steve raises an eyebrow and takes a careful step toward her.

"Tasha, look, if you wanna talk"- She suddenly flies at him, tackling him against the wall, her elbow pressed against the weak point in his neck. He gasps and sputters for breath, fingernails clawing at her to release.

"I don't want to fucking talk!" She shrieks at him, her face so close to his that their noses are touching. "I don't want to talk, I don't want to cry, I don't want to do anything. I just want to be left alone! Is that so much to ask?" Natasha pulls away from him and stumbles to the floor, hugging her knees, rocking back and forth, her breathing ragged and shallow. "He told me he loves me." She whispers brokenly to the floor, not caring who hear this small piece of information.

Steve drops next to her and wraps her in a warm embrace, his muscles crushing her thin frame against his chest. She leans into him while she cries, and as she does a single thought crosses her mind:

Even though she's got Steve right next to her, holding her, letting her cry, giving her support and letting her know that he's there for her, she's never, ever felt so alone.

**So, I hope this is okay for you all, and that it kind of portrays a bit of Nat's past. I will do a full chapter on her life with Ivan later, and how all that panned out, but at this point in time, I'm still working on a few other ideas, so be patient. I've also created my own community (I Owe Him A Debt) which is Clintasha based, so if you know any good Clintasha stories, that would be fantastic. Drop me a review to let me know what you think!  
no white horse for me  
**


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